


i don't want to rest in peace

by karnsteins



Series: the descent [2]
Category: The Outsiders - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Just hang on, M/M, Possession, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, but eventually it's a slow slide into the more traditional sense of a ship, centric to both, mostly Dallas and Ponyboy POVs, playing fast and loose with the hinton-verse, post-novel, switching POVs, that possession tag is there for a good reason, they don't get together in the... traditional sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 16,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26243074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karnsteins/pseuds/karnsteins
Summary: "You’d better wise up, Pony... you get tough like me and you don’t get hurt."It was one of the last things Dallas said to Ponyboy before he died. Two years later, one graveyard conversation does not turn out the way that Ponyboy expected it to, all because of some neighborhood kids.
Relationships: Ponyboy Curtis/Dallas Winston
Series: the descent [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1911538
Comments: 23
Kudos: 45





	1. graveyards

No one is supposed to be here, not even him. He's supposed to be on his way to a party -- he'd been invited by Curly Shephard for the first time in the few weeks since everything had cooled down with Angela. Pony had been looking forward to it; something to do on the weekends for once, and more and more, he preferred to be out of the house rather than in. Even with things between them straightened out, even though everyone had grown closer than before, being at home still didn't quite have the feeling it had before. 

He'd been halfway jogging, thinking about picking up cigarettes when the kids had caught his attention. They all looked young; no older than thirteen, despite the cigarettes in their mouths, and the way they talked tough. He wouldn't have cared if he hadn't seen, clear across the way, where they were. 

The cemetery being occupied in the days and weeks before Halloween wasn't odd for kids looking to stir up trouble. 

What was strange about it was the graves the kids had gone to. Before anything else, the recognition of the graves is what makes him turn away from the street, makes his legs pump faster and harder, makes his voice harsh when he says, "Get the fuck away from there!" 

Pony usually cares about what people think in situations like this, late at night, where he could be jumped at any moment. He doesn't care as he furiously runs into the cemetery, hollering his lungs out at the kids gathered around the graves. 

It's enough to spook them away from the graves, two of the kids on the other side of the cemetery in record time and only one left within his reach by the time he gets there. The kid stumbles, trips, the look on his face clearly terrified when he looks back at Pony. 

Scaring kids isn't really like him. In this instance though, Ponyboy makes sure that his glare is icy and hard, teeth almost bared in his face in anger. It's enough to make the kid gain his footing and run to wherever his friends had gone to in the night. 

As soon as he disappears over the horizon, Pony can feel the adrenaline start to ebb from his body. His legs collapse beneath him, his eyes burn, and he has to pant and gulp up air in an effort to not send himself into an emotional tailspin. 

It was good to cry. The counselor had said so. He'd cried with Soda before in the past year and a half, and sometimes, with Darry too. He was so, so tired of crying, and the effort it takes to hold it back feels too much to bare. 

Time passes; he's not sure if it's minutes or an hour. 

When he finally focuses, head starting to throb, it serves to upset him all the more. 

"Hell were they doing," he mutters, looking at the morbid display in front of him. There's a cheap ouijaboard there, with the planchette left askew in the dirt. Candles, cobbled together from various other cheap places, matches, cigarettes, and bottles of have drunken beer are with it too. 

It's obvious, then, what they were doing. What dumb, childlike thing. 

A laugh, slightly hysterical, more annoyed and bewildered leaves Ponyboy's lips. "Golly, Johnny. Some kid trying to raise you from the grave for Halloween?" It's easier to laugh like this, looking at the small, basic graves before him. Johnny Cade, Dallas Winston. Buried just a few feet apart from each other. 

It hadn't been easy to arrange. In those muddled memories of the time before, Pony remembers Darry negotiating. Mrs. Cade not caring about the procedure, of the funeral done together, jointly. No one had come for Dally's body, and it had been up to them. 

It had seemed right in all that time. Natural. Two deaths, hours apart. Two boys buried, next to each other. 

Neither of their graves are that expensive, and both are simple. No epithets. Just their names, their dates. Ponyboy hadn't been here since the funeral; and it fills him with a feeling of shame to recognize that. 

Sniffing, he reaches over and begins to clean the mess before him. "Can you believe it? Those kids thinking this could work. What for?" Ponyboy addresses them both, putting the board back into the cardboard box, blowing out candle after candle as he went. "Kids ain't even know you, probably dared to do it by some low life hood looking to make trouble." The matches, he pockets, and the cigarette box too. No need to waste it. "Probably would just be pissed, to get dragged back here, you know." 

His voice is shaking. Pony should stop. He should really get up, go.

Instead, he finds himself sitting in front of the graves, forgetting about the party. He lights up a cigarette to calm down, even if the words keep coming. "It ain't changed much. Darry and me… we get along better now. Soda and Sandy still broke up, but she writes him from Florida. I don't think… they're not in love no more, you know. He still got a soft spot for her. Evie and Steve -- they're the same." His hand wipes at his face again, half smiling. "Two-Bit finally graduated a few months ago. Should have seen the look on his Mom's face." 

It feels good to talk. To let it out. To pretend that Johnny was here, those dark eyes of his lighting up in understanding. Or to think about Dallas, those cold blue eyes already impatient, waiting for the good part, mouth pulled in a line of mild interest. 

If it were one of those ghost movies, Pony thinks he might say something… something more. About the sunsets. About watching them sink on the horizon, wishing he could have said or done something more then. About what it was like now, to see that the Shepard's hadn't really changed that much. That he was growing up now in a way they might be surprised to see. How he'd been able to hotwire a car on his own, had worked at the DX a little to make money despite the promise of going to college. 

He wants to say more, a whole lot more. 

It's simpler to say, "Don't think I'll ever stop missing you. Wish… wish it hadn't ever happened."

It's not the first time he's thought that. It won't be the last time, he reckons. Pony takes a few more breathes, then gathers up the board. He tries to peel some of the extra moss from the headstones, and decides that he'll just show up to the party late. 

Maybe Two-Bit will be there, and they can share a beer. 

It's the last thing he's thinking of when he leaves the cemetery. The ouijaboard goes into the trash, like everything else. 

When he gets drunk that night, he doesn't tell Two-Bit. They have themselves a good time, and instead of going home, they go to Buck's. The room that used to be Dally's, they end up there, Two-Bit taking the floor, and Ponyboy taking the bed. They fall asleep in no time, and there's no nightmares for Ponyboy. 

What he does notice, in a drunken, slow way, is that it seems like the room is colder than before. 

He puts it down to the time of the year and nothing else. There's a clap of lightning outside as he starts to fade into sleep, and the lashing of rain against the window. 

It lulls him to sleep, nice and easy.


	2. a cold snap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cold that's been nipping at him for the past few days, ever since that bender at Buck's, is different. It seems that ever since he woke up with a hangover, he couldn't shake off a persistent feeling of cold nipping at his heels no matter where he went.

Tulsa gets cold pretty easy this time of year. Ponyboy still forgets a jacket sometimes, still has to rely on Two-Bit or Darry to yell at him for it. 

The cold that's been nipping at him for the past few days, ever since that bender at Buck's, is different. It seems that ever since he woke up with a hangover, he couldn't shake off a persistent feeling of cold nipping at his heels no matter where he went. 

He'd put it down to the weather and the lack of a jacket at first. It might have stayed that way, until he noticed that the cold followed him past that. It seemed to have a life of it's own, coming with him into the house, into Curly Shepard's car, into the library, into the classroom, onto the track. All of it, it seemed to always have a chill no matter where he went or what he did. The chill was intense enough that Pony did something he hadn't in months: taken out the heavy brown jacket, half burnt from where Dally had knocked him so hard on the back he'd passed out, and put it on. 

It felt odd to do so. When the hood had died, they got all of his stuff. Most of it had gone into boxes. Ponyboy had taken the ring, and the necklace Dally had worn, the ring going in the drawer, and after a week, the pendant he had tried to give to Sylvia. She hadn't kept it, mailing it back, and it had gone into the jacket.

Of all the things Dally had left behind, the jacket was the one thing that Ponyboy couldn't exactly bear to put away. It felt too important a tie to him, to Dally to fold away and tuck down. 

He had tried, though. Tried to put it away like everything else. Not think too hard about why the back was burned. 

Now though, it feels normal and logical to pull it out. To put it on, and try to warm up from it. The smokey smell was mostly gone now, after all. 

The jacket was always an odd little thing, even without the smokey smell being gone from it now. The first time he'd put it on after Dally had died, it made him shiver. Dallas had always liked that jacket a lot; he never said so, but it seemed as if the winters in New York and the winters in Tulsa weren't felt the same by him. It was always heavier than others; he always wore it for longer stretches than everyone else, always kept it around on him even when it warmed up a little more reasonably. 

When Ponyboy had put his hands in the pockets, days after the funeral, he'd found Kool's there, unsmoked, a few crumpled up bills, and a lighter. It didn't feel right, to take the items out of there, catalogued like everything else. They'd remained, with the necklace and pendant joining them soon enough.

Even now, they tapped against his sides as he wore it around. Curly had grinned when he saw it; he didn't even need to say that Ponyboy looked tuff in it. 

It did make his mind wander though, to the last conversations he'd had with Dally, the lights flashing, his mouth curled in a snarl, eyes frantic, voice frantic, telling Pony not to be like Johnny, telling him to toughen up, be like him. 

Every time he recalls it, it makes him shiver. Sometimes, the words stick to him at night, and wearing the jacket brings it all back. 

He doesn't take it off. It works against the cold, keeps him warm as he joins Two-Bit to go see a movie. It feels right when he glances over as they walk, seeing a glimpse of Cherry's hair across the way, before he looks back at Two-Bit.

The jacket works for less than a week. The cold was back with a vengeance, clawing at him during the day, forcing his attention to it.

Then his thoughts shifted. Maybe it was a cold, some kind of flu coming onto him. That alone made Ponyboy more alert than usual in the next few days, weeks of it all, expecting to get worse, for the tell tale signs of illness. 

At first, he thought he was clear. 

Then, five days in, breath held, he woke up shivering in the night, throat sore. Soda was still beside him, one arm draped over him as Pony shook and shivered. 

This was normal. This was going to just be another cold. 

So he gives himself up to it in the oncoming days. Colds have routines, well worn roads, rituals. 

Sore throat. Cough. Fever. Take aspirin, let Soda gently cradle him. Let Darry worry over him. Let the medication put him under and hope that no nightmares came with it. 

Nightmares are the biggest hitch. They're the worst part and ever since Dally and Johnny died, it felt like a coin toss for him. Blackness where he had nothing or a nightmare that left him thrashing, screaming, crying? Would he dream of his parents? Would he dream of Dally's body crumpling beneath the street light? Would Johnny's face be there one moment, real and alive, or would he simply look as dead, empty, and small as he had in the hospital? 

The dreams never have rhyme or reason. 

Mercifully, there's blackness for the first day.

The second day, he wished he'd been left to sleep. Instead he found himself awake, feverish and hot from the moment the sun hit the sky. 

By the middle of the day, he's slumped on the couch in their living room. His fever still felt like it was ravaging his body, wave after wave. For now, he was alone, able to convince his brothers it could be done. To put everyone's mind to ease, though, Steve had volunteered to come see him during the lunch break later since Soda needed the time. 

The windows, he'd managed to crack open just enough to let a fresh breeze through. Crackers, ginger ale and aspirin littered the tables just within reach and a half eaten bowl of soup was starting to lose its warmth. 

Ponyboy' s thoughts were sluggish, weak as the morning stretched to noon. The television was playing something, the voices going in and out, indistinguishable from the normal noise of the outside. His chest felt tight with every breath he took, and opening his eyes felt too hard to do. 

The cold, it hadn't been there in days. It had been a relief… 

Until now. This time the cold seems to come back with a vengeance, filling up the small house in a way that seemed disproportionate to the cracked windows. It seeps in, clings to his every breath with a stubbornness that was almost admirable in its clear malice. Pony shivers beneath his blankets, starting to feel angry and, if he were honest, freaked out by the pervasiveness of the cold. 

By now, he knew that this wasn't normal. It couldn't be. 

Even the more logical part of his brain, slowed down by the cold, couldn't fight that notion. As time stretched, as he shivered with the malevolent cold, Pony tried to think about why, about how. 

His teeth began to clatter. The fever seemed to come back stronger, harder. A fitful sleep overtakes him, one where he keeps jolting awake every few moments, moaning for his mother, his father. For Johnny. Even, for Dallas. 

In a time he would have been more clear headed, it might have been disheartening maybe, or simply tragic. To have all the names of people he'd lost on his lips, even a hood that was more mean than nurturing there. And yet, the fever seemed to drag him to a strange circle of pain, of wanting. As if it wanted to drag out their names, their memories, make him beg for a comfort that wouldn't come. 

Yet. 

When he says Dallas' name, the room shifts. The coldness seems to shift, charge. Ponyboy's teeth seem to be jackhammering in his mouth, the shakes are almost too much to bear. The shift changes, as if a weight suddenly descends into the room. 

He closes his eyes for a long moment, trying to temper himself, trying to regain control. 

When he opens his eyes, he freezes. As sick as he is, he tries to tell himself that what-- that who he is seeing isn't real. 

He cannot be seeing this, a phantom image of Dallas Winston in his living room. He cannot be seeing Dallas here, standing as he did in life, expression as hard as before. Except he's still towheaded, eyes still blue and hard. The only real change is that his shirt and jeans still bear bullet holes, right where the fuzz shot him over a year ago. It's strange: he looks solid in some ways, and in others, otherworldly. Pony can see clear through his hair, can see that the blood shines a shimmering, rusted color that makes his stomach roil. 

"Glory, kid," even his voice isn't quite right, as if it's being projected from a far off place. 

Ponyboy does the only thing that it feels he can do: he throws up right on the carpet. 

He heaves and chokes with terror--and with a snap, the cold leaves. Goose flesh erupts on his skin as the rest of his senses seem to all come back at once, stomach emptying itself violently. 

He's coughing, sobbing when the door bangs open and Steve runs in. 

After that, Ponyboy doesn't remember much else. He knows that his fever breaks hours later, and that he sleeps for another ten hours without incident. 

When he wakes up, he finds that he can't feel the cold anymore--and the image of Dally refuses to leave him. Try as he might, he knows that it was real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this might have more than five parts, maybe a fully established 'verse.


	3. in the room where you sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In fits and spurts, Ponyboy feels as if the very fabric of reality is coming out from under him, re-ordering itself into something strange and nonsensical.

In fits and spurts, Ponyboy feels as if the very fabric of reality is coming out from under him, re-ordering itself into something strange and nonsensical. 

It isn't like those dime store books he's read where ghosts shout boo or settle into his life like ever present ghouls. It's both much more mundane and much worse than that. As the cold rides itself out, as the medication begins to work, as he gets more and more clear headed, Dallas Winston becomes more and more present. 

It's not as harrowing as seeing him materialize in the middle of the day, in front of the television. It's smaller than that. 

Hours after the first sighting, in fact, has Ponyboy climbing out of confused fever dream, his throat tight and appreciative that Soda wasn't in bed beside him. His head feels fuzzy and unfamiliar, still struggling to reckon with what he saw. The buzz of the television is still filling the house, and he can hear Two-Bit on the phone, though the words aren't clear. 

He strains to focus, to shift out the words, eyes opening minimally, expecting to see the bedroom more clearly than before. The dimness of the room, with the flimsy curtains drawn is welcome. His bed, still pushed together with Sodapop's, feels cooler than before, and Ponyboy tries to focus his gaze on the wall. 

For a long moment, he can't. It seems fuzzy, almost static like in his sight. Thinking it might simply be the fuzz of sleep and fever, he blinks, brings his palm up to rub at his eyes. He brings his hand down, spots dancing in front of his eyes. 

The shadows move and shift themselves. The dots dance, then resolve themselves into a form. Ponyboy feels delirious, hysterical when the form takes itself on more definite, pallid features of Dallas, lying beside him. 

It's worse than the living room. He's still got the same eyes, the same tow headed hair, the same scowl beside Ponyboy. It's as if he was dragged out of his grave, as pissed off in death as he was in life, laid out beside Ponyboy. 

"Dal-- Dal, you can't--" Ponyboy wants to say, You can't be here. This isn't real. Even as the words seize up in his throat, his brain knows that his imagination could never be so tortuous, so vivid. Not with the cold, not with the way Dallas' mouth twists in response. 

As if he read his mind, Dallas speaks again in that strange voice, "Real as anything else, kid." 

He wants to pass out, wants to shout for Two-Bit, wants to stop this. Ponyboy can feel everything jumble and jam together at once. His body spasms, and an expression of mild interest crosses Dallas' face. If it was any other time, it would have been interesting to Pony, something to capture. "If you puke again--" 

The reminder has Ponyboy's temper flare. In the absurdity, the horror of all of this, that was what Dallas focused on? 

Unlike himself months ago, who would have been hesitant to shove Dallas back even on the best of days, Ponyboy lashes out. Tries to shove his hand against Dallas' pallid shoulder, as if he was really there. 

At the touch, three things register: a look of surprise on Dallas' face; shock running through Pony at the physical collision; and then the immediate feeling of penetrating cold that washed over him, like a bucket of cold lake water had been poured out over him. 

Immediately, Ponyboy regrets it. He snatches his hand back, and Dallas reels back. His form seems to shiver, his face goes blank. A sick feeling washes over Ponyboy, and before he can say anything more, light floods the room -- and Dally disappears entirely. 

"Glory," Two-Bit's voice is absent of the usual jokes, and Ponyboy looks up at his face. He looks worried, coming over ot Pony's side. He's carrying blankets with him, and his hand reaches out to press itself against Ponyboy's forehead, feeling cool against his skin. "You look like you've--"

"I'm fine," Ponyboy cuts him off before the phrase can finish. "I just-- I'm hungry. Need some aspirin."

Two-Bit looks like he wants to argue. Then laziness or perhaps resignment, gets to him. He drapes the blankets onto Pony, ruffles his hair, and departs to get what was asked of him. 

Ponyboy lays down, shuts his eyes again and doesn't demand the light to be turned off. His mind feels as if it's starting to unstick itself from his body in sheer hysteria at the situation, at two moments of seeing Dallas of even touching him. 

For all the times out there where he hasn't used his head before, it seems tantamount now, that he do so. 

Even if he had no idea what do or where to start. 

Sleep claims him, and it slips Pony's mind that it's now been two years since Johnny and Dallas have died.


	4. monkey's paw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The better he gets, the more Dallas materializes.

The better he gets, the more Dallas materializes. 

The first time he looks wary, not angry when he settles himself beside Ponyboy on the recliner. It's been hours since the incident in the bedroom, and Ponyboy had moved into the living room to try and get some sort of movement, to try and distance himself. The carpet was thankfully clean from the first time he vomited, and Darry and Soda were both home. 

Ponyboy's hands shook as he drank from the bowl of soup, trying to stubbornly not acknowledge the fact that his dead friend (and it felt like a stretch in a way, and also not; they had never been buddies the way he and Johnny had aside from a moment or two, moments that Ponyboy clung to more than he wanted to admit) was sitting there beside him. Soda was in the kitchen making dinner for himself and Darry, and Darry was at the recliner, trying to be discreet about the fact he was watching Ponyboy like a hawk. 

Not that he could blame him; being sick like this always seemed to invite bad trouble, or symptoms of something worse. 

Ponyboy wishes, fervently, that he could tell him what was going on. Instead, he keeps it to himself as Dally seems to take stock of everything around him. 

The house had changed in small ways, to Ponyboy at least: some of the lamps had been changed out, a few holes had been repaired. Photos of his parents were still evident — and now ones of Johnny and Dallas. It had been Soda's idea to cut out the photos from the newspaper and put them there when they couldn't get anything else. It still burned Pony up that Mrs. Cade hadn't even responded to them when they'd ask for such basic things. 

"What did you expect, Pone?" 

Dallas' voice, still so distorted, makes him almost jump out of his skin. He cuts his eyes toward Dally, who'd got a scowl on his face as fierce as before. "You should know that broad—" Soda swears in the back of the kitchen, the sound of the pots clattering mixing unpleasantly with the distortion of Dally's voice, "—didn't give a shit about him. Right until the end." 

He's not wrong, Ponyboy knows. As much as his mind tried to work around that night in the hospital, he always remembered Mrs. Cade's dark eyes flashing, how Two-Bit had lashed out at her. The feeling in his stomach, the anger, the despair at her indifference had still existed. 

Two years on, and it hadn't changed, either. He'd caught snatches of conversation while he was sick — Darry, Soda, Two-Bit and Steve had gone visiting their graves again while he'd been in bed, struggling with fever and such an altered sensation of reality. How it had only been them there, like they expected. The fact that they lived in town, still and never visited _once_ burned them all good.

That doesn't mean that he has to acknowledge Dallas right now. The weight of everything on his shoulders was too much, head still spinning, trying to adjust to the fact that he could see a real _ghost_ here, of a boy he'd known for most of his life. 

Darry glances towards the kitchen, and Ponyboy takes the moment to give Dally a glare, as much as he can muster with how ill he feels. Dally glares right back, unconcerned with the situation. 

Two years ago, Ponyboy might've been too wary to glare like this. Then again, two years ago, Dally would have been alive. It wouldn't have been like this, and was soon as Darry stands up to go check on Soda, he hisses out, "Can you quit it, Dal?" 

Dallas looks like he's going to lash out at him — and then it looks as if he remembers what it did last time, and keeps his hand drawn to his side. They stay like that on the sofa, eyes cutting at each other, knowing that contact would send _that_ feeling through them again. 

Or, at least, Ponyboy assumes that Dallas feels something by his hesitance to have contact again. 

It's a bit of a dance from there; Ponyboy moving through the house. Dallas following at the corner of his eye, at the edge of his vision. Watching, moving around Pony, always out of reach of each other, yet still there, still very much aware of the other. It makes him all the more hyper aware, being followed by Dallas' eyes as Ponyboy moves around the house, the only person who's aware that Dallas is there. 

There's no worry in Dallas' face for Pony as he moves around, as he tries to get around his brothers, drink the soup, take the aspirin. There's nothing inquiring in his expression, only a mild observation of the things around him and an otherwise intent look towards Ponyboy whenever he could. He makes an occasional remark or two, and Ponyboy does his best to keep his mouth shut — which isn't too hard at the moment, with how out of sorts he feels physically, and mentally now.

When he finally stumbles to his shared room, when he finally shuts the door, puts his forehead on it, he can finally take a breath to steady himself. It feels like a cruel joke, to have gone to his grave weeks ago, mourning, wishing to speak again and to have it come true like this. 

What was it? A Monkey's Paw. Or something out of an episode of the Twilight Zone, happening right here. 

He turns his head around, looks at Dallas, who's leaning against the wall, expression as stormy as normal. His eyes are focused on Ponyboy, and when he talks, his voice is worse than before, "You have no idea what you did, huh."

"Did what, Dal?" His voice is tired, ragged. All those times lying awake at night, mourning, and Dallas is here nad he doesn't even know what to say or how to say it. Even if he weren't so sick that his vision was dancing, he didn't exactly understand what he had to do now, how this had all happened. 

Or if he was happy about it. Elated. Anything more than spooked. 

Dallas doesn't press. His voice still makes Ponyboy shiver as he says, "You should get back to bed. You look about as good as I do."

Ponyboy thinks he laughs a little bit. He can't remember, with the way he hits the bed.

The dreams are odd this time: they come in black and white spurts on and off. Streets littered with garbage; apartments that were dirty; a woman with a cigarette between her lips, looking exhausted; the view of the fuzz, his eyes narrowed, a gun raised, the feeling of an explosion in his stomach, a sensation of falling. 

Waking up, he feels better than before, and not entirely well. The images linger, and Dallas isn't there. 

It hurts. It shouldn't.

Days pass by in relative quiet from there. Sleep becomes more restful, his head clears more fully. 

One morning, as he's brushing his teeth, he catches Dallas at the corner of his eye, leaning against the wall. Relief washes through Ponyboy at the sight of him — and he never thought he'd be happy to see Dallas like this, translucent, scowling in his bathroom in the morning. 

Dallas doesn't say anything, and Ponyboy doesn't either. Just allows a sharp toothed grin to show when Ponyboy finishes up and reaches for the grease for his hair. 

After that, Dallas never fully appears again, only lingering at the edge of his vision on and off. Sometimes the light flows through his towheaded hair, sometimes Pony hears a whispered remark or two, and other times, the cold comes back. It's never as malevolent as it was before, never as heavy. 

In all that time, though, Ponyboy thinks. He's good for that, after all. Dally being back, haunting his steps wasn't a way for either of them to live, not now, not ever. The comfort of seeing Dally again didn't outweigh the fact that something was wrong with Dallas being here, among the living. He hadn't wanted this; he'd gone down under the street lamp, and it felt wrong that some kids had pulled him right out of his grave.

A few days later, he's truly back on his feet, his good shoes on, and he's back to the pavement, back in school. There are missed assignments to catch up on — and more importantly, he has the school library for his use. 

It isn't much; even the Soc's families didn't care to fund it as well as anything else. Coming here had been difficult once Johnny had died. Besides the lot, which Ponyboy had to come back to out of necessity rather than will, this was the place he and Johnny had hung out the most. They had come here to study, to avoid Socs during lunch, the place where Ponyboy had shown Johnny the patience their teachers never had for him. 

Avoiding it had been easy enough. Doing assignments in class, taking a risk or two for the main library had been all worth it to avoid the place that he carried so many memories of Johnny. 

There was a temptation to turn around. Go out to the public library where the memories weren't there, nipping at his heels. Go there and look for what he needed, what he had to find. 

Instead, he crosses the threshold for the first time in over a year and begins to look for the answer on how to contain a ghost. He dips his fingers into the pockets of the jacket he wears, fingers brushing against the still unsmoked pack of Kools as he walks the aisles, trying not to call too much attention to himself.


	5. memorabilia (revisited)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It almost seems to cling onto Ponyboy, day after day in a way that other clothes have not before.

Whenever Ponyboy wears Dallas' jacket, an unease settles over Darry. 

He can't exactly explain why, as the autumn cold starts to settle in, it unsettles him so much. It wouldn't be the first time that they've worn hand-me downs, and as much as Darry doesn't want to think about it, it wouldn't be the first time in their neighborhood that someone had worn clothes of a friend who had died. It was an uncomfortable piece of reality for them — of all people though, he hadn't thought Ponyboy would be evidence of this.

Two years changes things, though. Two years, three deaths all over the news, and things changed. 

The unease, he thinks it has more to do with the fact that Dally had died so recently, so violently. Darry still remembers finding Ponyboy there, of having to watch Dally crawl to him in that horrible way. The gunshots, Two-Bit crying out as Dallas died. Feeling anger, despair at Dallas, at the cops who had fired without even verifying what was really going on. Having to watch both of his kid brothers fall apart one after the other, having to keep everyone and everything together no matter what — and feeling everyone start to change. 

Some of it he knew was inevitable, that Two-Bit might drink more, start to drift more towards the Shepards, that Steve and Soda might start to splinter in two, that Ponyboy might crawl further and deeper into that dreamer head of his. Some of it comes true: Steve and Soda do fight, and when Soda and Sandy begin to talk again, he can feel things cool between them further. Two-Bit does go on more benders than he ought to, sometimes taking Ponyboy with him more than not. Darry, himself, spends more time feeling lost and high strung over the changes, over the tragedy spilling out. 

Like a lot of things, though, there are twists and turns.

Evie talks Steve into some sense. Steve and Soda aren't exactly the same, but they don't stay mad at each other anymore. Two-Bit actually gets out of high school thanks to some help from Ponyboy and even if Darry is wary about the Shepards easing in more with his brothers, nothing as bad as last year has happened yet. He even gets promoted, makes more money than before. 

Still, though there are little things that disturb him about Ponyboy at the moment and the jacket is one of them. The way it sits on Ponyboy's smaller frame makes him uncomfortable. Something about the way he wears it with the burn, after he recovers from his cold makes Darry uneasy. 

It almost seems to cling onto Ponyboy, day after day in a way that other clothes have not before. The way he pushes his hair out of his face some days makes Darry feel as if Dally is right there in front of him. 

Before Dally died, he never would have said that, never would have thought that. He's not sure, exactly, why it bothers him now so much to see it, Pony squinting at books, hand on his cheek, expression so focused. 

He's being paranoid, he tells himself. 

Ponyboy is just getting older. He's had to go through a hell of a time, just like the rest of them, and Darry quells the thoughts as he watches Ponyboy from across the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an interlude with darry! pondering a rename for this whole thing because it's getting bigger day by day. anyway, i'm @traumapeaks on tumblr if anyone wants to come talk about it.


	6. dig up the bones

As it turns out, most of the books on ghosts that are available at school, when dealing with possession and ghosts, are shit. 

Ponyboy wishes that he could be surprised, as he leans back on the chair, already dissatisfied with the book in front of him. Taking lunch here for the past few days had been preferable, the sandwiches from home always filling him just enough — and sneaking into the back kept the librarian off of his back. Right now, it was after school, and he was scheduled to go back to his track meet. 

His foot dangled below him, the other too long leg bent beneath him. It's been a full week of trying to pull out any book available to him, to try and keep coming back to this space where he and Johnny used to spend hours there, trying to get through high school together.

The first day, he'd been ravenous for it, looking for anything to explain it. Most of what he'd gotten were books that were old, dense, and a little too biblical for his taste. Most of what he remembered about church didn't seem to help him get around the dense words offered to him, and eventually the fire and brimstone of it all made him uncomfortable. From there, it had been mostly down hill, with only little things springing up, dime story novels and kid stuff that Pony had read dozens of times already or had glossed over. 

Most of it was crap and eventually, his mind started to wander to other things. 

Finding places in the library where he and Johnny had sat together, a table where he and Curly had carved their initials there back when Curly bothered to come to school; a corner where he and Johnny had figured out a particularly hard page of math one day, and even a corner where he and Johnny had successfully gotten Two-Bit to focus on a test well enough to pass. 

Thinking about it made his mouth crack into a smile, all the memories the place held. It made him feel sad too, having to come back here like this, in search of a way to understand what was going on with him. Two years and he hadn't stepped a foot in here, wanting to avoid all the memories, all the emotions that came with it all.

"There's no way that piece of shit library in town will be anymore help than here, kid," Dallas' voice drifts over to him. Ponyboy ignores him, letting Dallas' shadow remain at the edge of his vision. He's got twenty more minutes until track, and Dallas has habits now.

In the morning, Dallas is usually lying beside him if Soda has already gone for the day. He's never there if Soda is beside him. A few times, Ponyboy has caught him looking at Soda, half interested in the mornings when Soda has been busy, making his way through the room to get ready. It made his ears burn sometimes if Soda wasn't fully dressed — and saying much in the morning just wasn't something he normally did and the one time he had, Soda had looked at him funny. 

Of course, Dallas had found it funny, laughing in the corner. 

On the way to school, if Steve or Soda drove him, Dallas wouldn't ever appear. In class, in the hallways though, it seemed as if Dallas was casual if he was there or not. Sometimes he remained a shadow on the edge of Ponyboy's sight. Sometimes he'd be standing in the hallway, those dangerous eyes glittering as he watched people pass him. 

About the only time that Ponyboy had ever felt comforted by his presence was when the inevitable happened: Soc's passing him on the way to class. Ever since everything with Bob, Randy, and Cherry had gone down, things had calmed down in a large way — for a little while. 

As much as he'd wanted, in those days, for people to learn that things were rough all over, that they could have changed together…

Things didn't change over night. Socs still woke up rich and spoiled. Soc's still had the large bulk of society behind them and in time, as stories changed as things went on, some of them fell back into old patterns. 

Ponyboy got taller, but stayed largely small. The hero shine wore off, and eventually, sharp elbows, casual snickers started up again. 

Dislike of them rose up, and as it was almost two years since, things got tense again. Most mornings, things were fine. Dallas drifted around, trying not to touch anyone else (more evidence, Pony thought, that exchanging contact had been as harrowing for Dallas as it had been for him), cracking wise a few times in ways Pony could only here, or keeping his silence as he went with him to classes. A few times, he had a comment or two or a question about hoods and greasers he knew — Pony usually murmured the answer or gave a comment. 

It still felt odd to do it, act like Dallas was there with others. It was slowly starting to ebb away, which worried Pony, in the back of his way, a nagging way. 

The morning when things went bad, though, he didn't mind. It was pretty quick: a hand flying up, knocking his books out of his hands, and then another hand shooting out to shove him against the locker. 

Getting pissed off at this wasn't new. The fury that welled up in him, felt a lot worse than before. It seemed to want to come roaring out of him, and for a moment, Ponyboy thought he might lose his head, punch them back. To say it was stupid was an understatement, when he was on the edge of graduating, with college admissions sent out. One fight could ruin it all, and Darry would _kill_ him. 

His temper was there, raging, tired after all this time, threatening to get out, wanting to lash out with everything he'd been keeping close to his chest. 

Instead of Ponyboy lashing out, however, it was Dallas who materialized quite literally out of thin air. He hadn't touched Ponyboy again after the incident in the bedroom, and here, he thrust his hand at the unsuspecting Soc with a look of fury that Ponyboy wished he had a camera for to capture it, the way his lip peeled back in a snarl, with the way his eyes seemed to glow with the rage. 

A strangled, horrifying sound left the Soc's mouth with the contact. The way his face constricted, the way he immediately went pale felt sufficient enough payback. Ponyboy gathered his things in record time, making his way from the Soc as he crumpled to the ground, gasping for air. His face was still constricted, his own starting to gather around him in concern as his hands began to claw at his throat. 

Thinking about how much it echoed Dallas' own death made Ponyboy move faster down the hallway, trying to keep himself under control. "Thanks, Dal," the words come out in their own, quick gasp, not daring to glance back. 

The look on Dally's face when Ponyboy glanced at him, was almost lifelike with the livid expression on his face. "I told you — they don't change." 

Two years. Two years, three senseless deaths and Dallas wasn't wrong. 

Back in the present, he put his hand into his pocket, withdrawing the pack of Lucky Strikes from his pocket, taking out a cigarette. Quitting — he was supposed to be quitting — and still he lit one up, murmuring, "I wouldn't have to if you knew anything." 

There's no real heat in his voice when he says it. He's got nothing to fear from Dallas at this point — ignoring him didn't get Pony much of anywhere. It was also a simple fact, from the bits and pieces they had talked over, gone through the library when Dallas had engaged. It had been nice to see him actually attempt to help when he'd had a large disinterest in books in life.

Quietly, though, Ponyboy knew that getting attached wasn't… good. 

It was hard to admit to himself that the more time goes by, he's starting to become used to the hood again. Not in the same way as he had been when he was fourteen, growing up with a boy who would belt you at one time or another out of annoyance or meanness. It also wasn't exactly like those sparse moments where Pony had felt like Dallas' buddy, either. It felt somewhere near the middle, and when he took a drag from his cigarette, he focused on Dallas, who was sitting opposite him. 

"I ain't the brains in this," Dallas drawls out, not for the first time and with an equal amount of understood coolness, "All I know is that fuzz was shooting me and then I showed up in your living room." He leans back in the chair, careful not to pass through it. "You know as much as I do, Pone which is jack shit."

Ponyboy swears under his breath as Dallas talks. "Yeah, alright. I'll still try the city library, then. There's no way those kids could've done this by themselves with a cheap board like that." His fingers tap impatiently on the table in front of him. As much as he doesn't fear Dallas striking out at him, and as comfortable as he's getting, there is still hesitation to push for more.

Dallas still _died_ in front of him. The last thing Dally had done in life was crawl on that wet pavement, gasping for breath, gasping out Ponyboy's name. The memory was still burned into his mind, still visited in his dreams even now. His body was still at the cemetery, he still had been gunned down violently two years ago. Pushing for more, for what Dallas clearly knew and wasn't telling Ponyboy felt like a violation, felt wrong to ask for more, to pry for more as much as he wanted it, as he needed it. 

There were questions he wanted to ask. About Johnny. About what happened. About Dallas' last thoughts, about if he really, truly had wanted that. 

It all felt too soon, felt forbidden. Ponyboy wasn't the innocent dreamer he used to be, he still understood intrinsically that out of all of them, Dallas had cared the most for Johnny and that he had wanted to die then, he had wanted to explode. He'd done everything in his power to be killed. 

Having him here, his eyes boring into Ponyboy's own felt like there was something else. Something more. 

He would find out eventually. 

Dallas' eyes narrow at him. Ponyboy looks back at him, the questions on the tip of his tongue, unanswered. 

That night, the dreams come back again in that odd, static black and white. He dreams of the woman again, her fingers carding through his hair, her words muffled. The sensation of something like love washes over him in the dream -- of longing, of a want that would never be satisfied again. A sense of loss. 

When he wakes up again, Dallas is watching him, his eyes as cold as ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i finally have an end point for part one of an idk how many part series! renamed this, spruced up the chapter names and got the series up so buckle up. i'll be updating on weekdays, daily if possible, but nothing on weekends. love any feedback and you can come holler at me on tumblr, i'm traumapeaks there.


	7. say your last goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Curly laughs, cocks his head to the inside of the car. Something in his laugh reminds Ponyboy of Dallas, which seems to only make him move faster to chase that feeling, that reminder.

Dallas chooses when he comes and goes, and Ponyboy idly still wishes that the damn hood would at least come and visit him on a day like this. Weeks, and there was still nothing anywhere on how to handle a dead friend visiting you. He'd gotten hit by college applications, schoolwork, and almost got caught sneaking out with Two-Bit one night. Everything except actually making it to the town library. Dreams came and went of Dally dying, of that time in the church intermingled with those other black and white dreams of the woman or a ratty apartment. 

And to make things worse, he'd been dodging Angela Shepard for days now. She'd gotten it in her head that she wanted to date him instead, and to say that Ponyboy was disinterested felt like an understatement. 

Soda had always said he'd grow out of it, he'd get into girls. It still hadn't really happened for him, even at sixteen. He was more occupied with trying to get through school than wonder about a girl to mess with, even without Dallas Winston haunting his steps whenever it pleased him. He was almost like a cat, coming and going without a set reason to. Ponyboy sometimes called and expected him to be there and sometimes Dallas showed up. Usually it seemed whenever the other guys were around it was easiest. The commentary he gave with it varied from the expected to an occasional off color comment that would make Ponyboy's ears burn. 

More than once, Ponyboy had the sneaking suspicion Dallas did that on purpose, more and more, just to see him react. He couldn't say that he minded it -- he always threaded in some of his own comments when he could, or echoed what Dallas had said a time or two.

Sometimes though, just once, Ponyboy wanted to show Dallas the sunset the way he'd wanted to back then, the way he and Johnny had talked about. He wanted to make him sit, watch it with him. Let him see, maybe, what Pony and Johnny saw. 

Then again, maybe it was better. There were still so many unanswered things between them, from Dallas' presence to Johnny's absence. The more time that stretched out, the more Ponyboy thought he underestimated those kids. The more he wondered why Dallas, who had ran headlong to death, had come back and not Johnny.

You didn't have to be a genius to know that Dallas wouldn't answer that. Ponyboy used his head. 

Enjoying a private moment (glory, that this was now a private moment) of the sunset suited him fine. He didn't even have a cigarette as he watched, back against the porch, glad that Soda was inside reading another letter and Darry wasn't home just yet. The moment was for himself, the quiet was for himself. 

He shut his eyes, tempted to sleep right there for a few moments when the sound of a car horn shattered the quiet.

"You still ain't got your own jacket?" 

Curly's smirking face greets Ponyboy when he opens his eyes. He's leaning out of his car, and Ponyboy knows that look. It's a look that usually ended up with him trying to make sure Darry wouldn't skin him alive. 

He shouldn't respond to it. He should go inside, get to catching up on some homework. 

It was also a Friday night. Ponyboy hadn't gotten out of the house for simple fun ever since… well. Bucks, with Two-Bit. 

"Lay off, Curly," he stood up from his porch, loping down the steps. "What do you want, you greasy hood?" 

Curly laughs, cocks his head to the inside of the car. Something in his laugh reminds Ponyboy of Dallas, which seems to only make him move faster to chase that feeling, that reminder. 

(Two years ago, he wouldn't have.)

He's not sure of how exactly, he and Curly get to a party. The night is a blur of talking to other greasers, leaning out the car window, exchanging cigarettes, listening to others, and the occasional glimpse of Dallas in the corner of his eye. He just knows that by the time he starts to really get comfortable, he's getting good and buzzed. There aren't any hippies here, but there are drugs. As much as Pony doesn't mind beers now, the drugs make him sober up a little, trying to make sure that whatever mischief Curly wanted to pull him into wouldn't involve that. 

It goes double when he spots Angela from across the way. That creeping, cold feeling that indicated Dallas was showing up didn't even bother him as Ponyboy pretended not to see her, going to get another cold beer from the stash they'd been keeping. Avoiding her was priority, and he wished that Two-Bit was here — Two-Bit was louder, funnier, and he'd be able to navigate this better. 

"Didn't take you for a coward," Dally snipes, watching as Pony made his way through the floor, trying to keep ahead of her, to make sure she didn't catch his eye. "Running from Angela Shepard." 

Ponyboy rolls his eyes, feeling it was loud enough to say, "She ain't that different from Sylvia." Once again, it's a jab he would have never taken in the years before, and the surprise on Dallas' face is actually really funny. Ponyboy blames his laugh on the drink, bumping into a boy he's not completely familiar with as he goes. 

He turns around, means to apologize. The apology is halfway out of his mouth when it's not a cold feeling that seeps down his spine — it's a stab of ice in his head, urgent, and angry. 

It's the only thing that warns him as the bottle comes crashing down on his head. 

Everything turns to static for a moment. He can hear Curly yelling, can feel bodies pushing and shoving, and there's blood seeping down– seeping down–

He thinks, _Dally?_

His memory stops there. 

Ponyboy doesn't come back to himself until the next morning, squinting beneath a pack of ice, hands clutching his blankets. Soda has an arm thrown around him, and the ceiling seems to swirl. 

It takes a few minutes for him to orient himself, and when he does, he has to push Soda's arm away, trying to grasp for the memory of last night. 

"Fucking hell, kid," Dallas says. Ponyboy sits up fully, and the expression of relief on Dallas' face is the furthest thing from comforting. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> love any feedback here, and if you want, you can come holler at me on tumblr, i'm traumapeaks there.


	8. there will be blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had no idea things would end up like this.

When he raised that gun two years ago: he'd only wanted to die. Dallas had no idea that two years on, he would be forced out of his death. 

There had been a vague acceptance of hell, of a dark eternal stretch or punishment. What it was, he didn't have a clue now. He only remembers dying and then the Curtis living room. Ponyboy's terrified face, the realization that he was not alive and not quite dead. 

He had no idea things would end up like this. 

He didn't think he'd be here, in some party at Tim Shepard's place, watching Ponyboy Curtis get drunk. Truth be told, he never thought of Ponyboy hanging out with the Shepards so easily like this. He and Tim knew that Pony and Curly were friends, both of them even a bit amused by the way the boys got along. They both had been well aware of Darry's situation, Dallas sometimes deliberately curbing Ponyboy away from Curly more than once. It was the least he could do, to keep him out of real trouble that Curly got himself into. 

There wasn't a chance of that when he was like this, unable to communicate with the real world, unable to leave Ponyboy's side. 

He had tried, the first time he'd shown up, to leave the Curtis house. He'd wanted to find his grave, see what happened to everyone else, try to make sense of things. All it had gotten him was nothing; a few steps to the front door and then he'd had a strange feeling, as if he was growing thinner and thinner, less real. 

Stubbornly, he'd tried to make it down the front steps, avoiding Steve. Every step he took was worse after the other, and by the time he'd made it to the front yard, real terror started to seep into him that if he took one more step, this precarious position would end. 

Dallas had stopped. Sworn, yelled, felt cheated and angry. He hadn't wanted to come back. He'd wanted to die, wanted out of here. 

Nothing had worked. And as furious as he was, taking another five steps forward seemed worse. That whatever step forward would be worse than blackness and worse than being dragged back into the living. 

Then he turned back to the house. Gone back up the steps. 

Ever since then, he had tried to make it work, figure things out. There were worse people to be stuck with than Ponyboy Curtis--and it was still painful as it was to see the holes left by everything that had happened. 

He hadn't wanted to see the aftermath. Couldn't take it. And now he had a front seat to it all. Ponyboy had changed, sharpened in way that Dallas did not know he could stand and at the same time, a grim part of him approved of. 

The rest of it was still falling into place. 

Touching living people was the worst part, it seemed to hurt them and it made himself feel strange and disconnected. The one time Ponyboy had touched him by accident, he thought he'd harmed him in a real way. 

Using it on the Soc was an entirely different matter. Dally didn't care about how it sent such a strange sensation through his him, that it felt like the bullet holes in his form were burning, like he'd been struck all over again. Socs didn't change, would never change, and even if he wasn't alive, he'd do something to make sure they would regret touching Ponyboy. 

Hours after, it was different when he had made contact with Pony; it wasn't really like floating, but he couldn't say that he felt as present as he had before, as if any moment afterwards, and he'd disappear. 

Dallas didn't want to disappear. Not now. Not when some form of him was back now. That was the second time that the idea of leaving, truly being untethered had made him upset, afraid even. 

Addressing it wasn't something he wanted to do, didn't want to delve too hard about why he might be sticking around. He'd put it away, gone about his routine with Ponyboy that they had fallen into. Trying to research, getting distracted together, or watching Ponyboy, well. Live. 

It couldn't be like before, so Dally now had to pay attention to the things he hadn't in life, to the parts that had and hadn't shifted. How often the kid seemed to idle in class at times, still ahead even around those Soccy smart asses. He'd doodle, read ahead, sometimes doing his homework halfway through the lecture. Dally had always thought he was smart, and hadn't ever appreciated, until now, just how smart Ponyboy was. How much he didn't deserve to have to work underneath the eyes of his classmates who clearly thought he didn't deserve to be there. 

That was when some of the sharpness, the changes came out the most, the hunched shoulders, the reflexive way he tensed up. The Ponyboy he'd known was quiet, but not so much like this. It was… 

Scars. Scars from shit Ponyboy didn't deserve to have. 

He wasn't the only one either. It left Dally with a painful knot that Johnny was gone, still -- the one person who deserved to come back to life and he wasn't there. Without Johnny there, the gang hadn't fallen apart -- it had changed. Soda and Steve seemed to have a different, slightly more distant relationship. Darry seemed like he'd aged more beneath the stress. Ponyboy had drifted to hanging out with Curly more, and strangely, Two-Bit of all people. Two-Bit felt a little more deliberate in choice, trying to keep an eye out on Ponyboy more than anything and a convenience if you asked Dally. Curly made more sense for their ages, with the history they had. 

What Tim and Darry thought of that, well. Dally could only be a bit amused by that eventual discussion. 

Here and now, at this party, he felt what he felt often now: restless, bored, angry. Jealous, even. Hunger, thirst didn't happen for him like before. A craving for certain sensations, remained -- Dallas just knew that they weren't as strong as before, not as necessary. Just seeing people dance, drink, socialize made him aware of the lack of want, which turned to jealous of it, when he hadn't even thought of it until Ponyboy had come. 

He would have stayed that way until Ponyboy's remark. Dallas had seen what Ponyboy hadn't: an angry hood, gripping a glass bottle, approaching from the back with every intent to use it. No one else was paying attention to him, and immediately, Dallas tried to do his best to warn Ponyboy. 

Except, he'd been too slow. The words to tell Ponyboy weren't fast enough as the bottle crashed down on his head. 

Time seems to slow even more, into almost simple snaps of reality. Ponyboy's face spasming beneath the blow. A trickle of blood down his cheek. Dally feels fury well up in him, and when Ponyboy calls his name… 

Something clicks into place. It tells him that touching Ponyboy is the right thing to do. 

So he does. His fingers wrap around Ponyboy's shoulder, touching his bare skin and the jacket that Dally used to own. 

In an instant, he realizes that he's in Ponyboy's body, wiry not as tall as Dallas had been. He can tell that Ponyboy has been hurt, cut by the bottle. 

The anger propels him, turning around to the smug greaser who did it, balling up his fist and bringing it down against his face. 

Dallas Winston is alive again, in a sense. 

And every time he brings his fist down, it feels better and better. He shouldn't fit in Ponyboy's body, he shouldn't be able to do this, but he does. 

Ponyboy's knuckles crack and splinter. Other greaser and hoods join in and Dallas feels right at home in the fray. The blows he gets don't seem to be real, the pain distant. 

Only when someone yells that the fuzz is on their way does he come to his senses. He gives one more punch, and begins to run. The fuzz is coming closer — a wild thought comes to him that the same one who shot him might be there — and Ponyboy's body can really run. 

The air is cold, good on his face. It's good to be able to feel it, to smell the neighborhood, to taste the air. Dallas wants to laugh, and his feet keep going, pounding the road until… 

Until he finds himself turning towards the road where the lot is. Where he used to catch Johnny sleeping or played football with Steve, Two-Bit, Soda, Darry. The place where everything started to… 

Pain erupts thunderously in his head. He brings his hand up and remembers that no. This isn't his body. He can feel Ponyboy still there, muted and confused. 

This isn't his body, this wasn't his life anymore. Dallas was dead. No one else knew he was here, no one would believe Ponyboy if he told them. He'd taken Ponyboy's body over and he couldn't stay. 

His eyes grow hot, and it's with confusion he realizes that it's a precursor to tears. 

Maybe it's Ponyboy's body, reacting to pain, he thinks. 

Dallas breathes in, breathes out. Reaches into his pockets and finds the pendant, the Kools. 

He puts the pendant on, and uses it to strike a match, light the cigarette. His hand steadies, the heat abates. 

Once the cigarette is gone, he turns towards the Curtis house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there will be some switching povs in this! also last update for about a week or so as i had to deconstruct my next installment. i try to stay about ten chapters ahead, so gonna pause while i restructure some stuff. i'll probably post one shots/drabbles in between though (most of them much more outright dallas/ponyboy), might as well while i still have the juice. 
> 
> as always, holler in the comments, kudos, come poke me on tumblr, i'm traumapeaks.


	9. don't let me in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a conversation with curly, a conversation with dallas.

Curly catches up with him on Sunday, his eyes narrowed at Ponyboy when he lopes down the front steps. "Shit, I thought you were a goner for sure."

"I'm tuff," Ponyboy keeps it short, wishing that he could go a month without his head ending up harmed or with another headache to nurse. He squints back at Curly, leaning through the car window as he talks. He's just in his jeans and a thin shirt, and the cold is already starting to get to him. "The fuzz didn't haul you in or anything?" 

"No, and the guy who did it," Curly's eyes take on a dangerous glint, "Well, he's not going to bottle anyone no more." Ponyboy gives an approving nod; that was how things were, and he wasn't going to be mad at Curly defending him. "Question though for you. Since when did you start wearing Dallas' shit?" 

A confused look crosses Ponyboy's face. "What?" 

Curly points at Ponyboy's hand. Confused, he looks down, and notices that on his right hand was the skull ring that Dally used to wear. He blinks at it in bewilderment -- remembering how it came to him, a feeling of sick washes over him -- and whips his head back up at Curly. "Sorry -- must've been in the jacket."

"The pendant, too?" Curly shrugs. "Makes you look tuff is all. Didn't think you'd be the one wearing it, though." He nods at the house. "I gotta go -- Tim needs me for something. See you later?" 

"If Darry lets me," Ponyboy offers to him, with a wry look he hopes is genuine. He pulls back, Curly laughing, and he shoots down the road. The sick feeling washes over him again, and Ponyboy races back inside the house, hoping no one can hear him when he shuts the door to the room.

The ring, he pulls off as quick as he can. It's as if his finger is burning when he does it, opening the drawer where it had been. He tosses it in there, goes for the necklace, and before Dally can say anything, appearing with that familiar cold, he says, "Not here." 

"Not here?" Soda's voice intrudes, walking in the door, expression curious. 

"Oh, shit," Ponyboy relaxes when Soda passes him, grinning when he ruffles his hair. Dallas shoots Pony a glare before dissipating, and Pony forgets to take the necklace off. "Sorry, was talking to myself about an assignment." He pulls off the shirt, glancing into the mirror as he does it. It seems particularly shitty this morning that his eyes would drift down to the burn scars left on his shoulders from the church. They aren't as vivid as they were, weren't as painful. They seem accusatory though, as Pony quickly reaches for the sweats he needed. "You and Steve going to the DX today?"

"Naw," Soda grins at him, "I'm going to his place, for a bit. He needs some help for a surprise for Evie." 

Ponyboy considers how serious it must be for Steve to ask for Soda's help. And then grins back. "He tell you what it is--" Soda puts a finger on his lips, and Ponyboy rolls his eyes. "Alright, fine. I'm heading out, we've got a track practice today." 

Soda looks a bit curious at that -- weekend track meets weren't usually done on Sundays. Ponyboy hopes that he'll just take the lie. 

He does after a moment. "Just get home in time for dinner. I got a surprise tonight!" 

Ponyboy keeps it in mind as he slips on his good shoes. Dally's jacket stays on the recliner, and he makes his way out before Darry can call on him. He breathes in the autumn air, and runs. 

It feels good to do it, to run to the school, to let his body take him there. It kept his mind off of what he really wanted to focus on: Friday night. 

His head had throbbed, palm pressed into his eye as Dallas stood opposite him. Soda was snoring, and Ponyboy knew that after a hard day at the DX, he would be exhausted. Going into the living room felt a little risky, so he'd kept his voice down as he spoke, "What the hell happened Dal? I got-- someone hit me with a--"

"Bottle," Dallas' voice sounds less distorted like this, whispering in the night. For a ghost, he looked tired, less corporeal than before. "I don't know his name -- he sure as hell knows yours, and he won't be doing that shit again after what I did. You should've seen his face when I was done with him." 

Ponyboy shifted on the bed, so he could look at Dallas a little better. The pain was starting to ebb now. "Shit, shit. Did the fuzz show up?" 

Dallas frowns. "Yeah, I was long gone by then. They probably picked up Curly if anyone. He can fend for himself, though. You don't remember any of it?" 

"No, nothing," a trace of fear threads his voice. They both know it's there, even if Ponyboy doesn't want to elaborate further. He takes a shaking breath, trying to keep his composure and fails, "What did you do, how the hell did you do that? I'm not-- I'm not mad you saved me, Dal," the words babble out of him, his hands shaking, all of the panic he had been trying to keep at bay for weeks now starting to come out of him all at once, "I can't-- I can't _not remember_ \--"

"Hey, hey!" Dallas snaps, ever the sensitive one. "I told you over and over again that _I don't fucking know_. I know just about as much as you do! Man, I just saw you take that hit over the head, and I just-- I knew that if I touched you, it wouldn't go like it did the first time. I just did it, I saved your skin-- and fuck this, Pony," his voice raises, that strange thin way it had when Johnny said he'd turn himself in.

"That's not fair," Ponyboy hisses back, still trying to get his grasp on it all, "Dallas, you have to -- Why wouldn't you know? This can't happen again, we can't let that happen again, you're not supposed to even--"

Dallas is a full thought ahead, spitting out the words, "For all that bullshit you said at the grave, you seem to just want to get rid of me real fucking fast."

It cuts in all different kinds of ways. Dallas still knows how to hit someone, even if it's not with his fists anymore. Several thoughts seize themselves one at a time in Ponyboy's mind: the way Johnny had looked, when he'd told Dallas he wanted to turn himself in; the fact that Dallas was right, he _had_ saved Ponyboy's life back there; the terror that he had missed time again, like he had in the days after Dallas died, how Dallas didn't know and didn't understand what it had been like to live in a vacuum like that; that maybe Dallas did know something -- it was just not something he could fully grasp. 

And, that this was wrong. All of this was wrong. Nothing was right, and trying to grasp at it, trying to work at it like _this_ wasn't working. 

Dallas disappears on his own, and doesn't show up on Saturday. 

In all that time, Ponyboy still isn't sure when the ring ended up on his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> suitably ahead, but updating once a week now! i'll have other one shots and such out. as always, come comment, kudos, or yell at me on tumblr, i'm @traumapeaks


	10. i'll ruin your life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I never asked what you wanted, Dal. I think… I don't think we can do this unless we talk about it. Whenever you want to talk about it, well. It ain't like you got anyone else to talk to."

Reaching the school track isn't very hard now. It's Sunday, with most decent people in church or others waking up from the partying they'd done days ago. Ponyboy has to jump the fence to get inside, and once he's on the track proper, it's easy to let go, fly. 

Whatever harm he'd gotten from that bottling, it cleared up soon enough. His feet just hit the ground, lap after lap, his mind going around in circles, trying to pick apart everything that he had to deal with now, trying to make sense of it all. 

It took hours to work it out, until his legs were burning, his chest hurt and the sun was high in the sky. A few heavy, hard gulps of water from the fountain went down good enough, and knowing he wasn't going to be interrupted, he lay down on the springy green turf of the school, staring up at the sky. The sky is cloudless, the cold is just enough to stand, and Ponyboy shuts his eyes, trying to work up the nerve to do what he needed to do.

"You can hear me, can't you, Dal?" 

There's no answer, like he thought. Ponyboy takes another breath, and regrets having so many cigarettes lately. "I know you can. I know you ain't the type, so I'll say it: I haven't been that great company lately, for someone who's alive when you're dead. I mean -- I meant what I said. At the grave. You weren't the nicest guy, and we didn't always get along. I did -- I do miss you." It feels uncomfortable to say this in the open air, even if he knew that somehow, Dallas was there listening. "I do want you here, but shit Dal, what the hell am I supposed to _do?_ This is like an episode of the Twilight Zone or something, having your dead friend show up one day and then take over your body." 

There was a hysterical, nervous note to his voice. Greasers didn't cry, Ponyboy wouldn't say anything more about how terrifying he was, about how much he didn't know what to do in those months Dallas and Johnny were dead. He wouldn't start now, and a few steadying breaths brought him back on track. "I never asked what you wanted, Dal. I think… I don't think we can do this unless we talk about it. Whenever you want to talk about it, well. It ain't like you got anyone else to talk to." 

There's a vindictive stab of cold at his shoulder. 

It's the answer he has to live with for two weeks, four days, six hours, and ten minutes. In those weeks, days, hours, and minutes, the loneliness grows for Ponyboy. He'd gotten used to Dallas being there, whether it was the slip of cold, the view of his shadow right at the edge of his eye, catching him in the back of the classroom or a remark that made him laugh or was a little sharper than necessary. 

Dallas wasn't Johnny. He never could replace Johnny that way, could never fit in that shape. In all that time though, things had changed. They had felt closer to buddies than two guys in a gang, that feeling had grown and grown. With Dallas' silence, it made the change in their relationship all the more stark. 

In that time, the jacket goes back onto his shoulders. The pendant stays too, and eventually, after Curly mentions it again, the ring makes its way back onto Pony's hand. It feels heavier than he thought it would. 

His lips are pressed against the cool metal of it, sitting at the table as Darry cooks dinner behind him. His legs are stretched out, socks hardly hanging on, when he feels gooseflesh on his neck and that familiar cold. 

Resolutely, he does not look up from his book. 

Darry continues to cook, flipping the grilled cheese sandwiches carefully, the tomato soup bubbing along nicely. "You send out any more applications, kiddo?" 

"Mm-hmm," Pony says as if he isn't waiting for Dally to say what he needed to say. "Two more, yesterday. I think that should be okay for now. Getting a bit pricey, how much they want me to pay." That always makes Darry stop prying so hard, and the scrape of the spatula against the skillet is a little louder than usual. 

Something cold wraps itself around Pony's ankle, and yanks. His leg jerks up automatically, knee banging against the table. He swears a blue streak in pain, Darry turning around to look at him in surprise. Ponyboy clutches his knee, finally distracted from his book. Dally is sitting across from him, flipping him the bird with a smirk. 

"Here I was thinking you were real busy," Dally drawls out as Ponyboy seemingly glares at air.

"You okay, Pony?" Darry asks, eyebrows raised. 

"Dar, the soup," Pony groans out. Darry turns right in time to turn it off. It gives Ponyboy enough time to flip Dallas right back. Dallas grins back. 

Dinner passes by easy, despite the occasional feeling of cold Dallas emits. Once Darry moves into the living room for his backrub, Pony is able to talk lowly, "You got something to say, greaser?" 

"I ain't good with words," Dallas says defensively. Ponyboy adopts a bored expression then, knowing it was going to be almost exactly like the one Dally used to use to get through a conversation faster, and using it against Dally feels punishment enough. "I'll say this though: I did think about what you said. And I think we can go back to square one of this ghost bullshit." 

Ponyboy figures that's about the best acknowledgement of things he would get, finally putting down his book properly. "So what do you want to do then? Do we have to make rules for this, or something?" 

Dally's nose wrinkles, like he's about to say something really shitty, and then he reconsiders it, eyes dropping to Pony's right hand, at the ring there. He looks back up at Pony, and shrugs. "I dunno. You never told me what exactly… happened." 

Impressive, for Dallas. 

Ponyboy earmarks his book, stands up, and goes to his room in a few quick strides. He shuts the door, and finds himself reaching for a pack of Kools that Soda must've left out. He takes one out, puts it between his lips and settles down on the floor.

Things are surely strange. He would have never had a talk like this with Dally when he was alive, in such seriousness or close quarters. 

Dallas sits opposite him, more solid than usual. His legs fold up, and Ponyboy leans back. Nervousness curls in his stomach… 

But they needed to do this. He takes a breath and begins to talk. He talks and talks about what it felt like to watch Dally fall, to watch him call, crying out his name. He talks about having to identify Dallas' body, about having to grasp his hand to take the ring off of his hand, the necklace. Talks about the funerals, about what it was like to talk to the Socs, about how things seemed to change… 

And how things didn't. 

He smokes his way through three cigarettes, until his voice is hoarse. Until he's winding down, quiet and tired, "Then you showed back up, scaring the hell out of me. I didn't know what to do-- and you didn't either." It's as much as an opening Dally will get. 

The whole time, Pony has been watching his face. Watching him try to keep the stoic if interested expression. Right now it's stormy, a shade away from that angry look he always carried before. It's not quite there--like Dally is forcing it under some kind of control. 

A slightly funny thought occurs to Ponyboy that Dallas might be learning patience he didn't have before. 

Or… 

"Shit, Pone," his voice sounds tired, worn. His hand goes up to rub at his face. Ponyboy waits, patiently for what he has to say next. This is purely uncharted territory for them. "I didn't… I mean, I thought that was…" 

Dallas struggles for words. Ponyboy is struck in that moment how much of Dallas has always, always been fueled by anger. He doesn't know how to express anything else, really. "I get it," he doesn't, not entirely and the glare Dallas sends him is loud and clear, "We can't change that. We just have to figure out what to do now. I meant that I don't want to have you go again, but neither of us understand how this works or what we want. So we can start there: what do you want?" 

Dallas' glare doesn't really abate so much as shift. He frowns and Ponyboy waits, stubbing out the cigarette on an ashtray.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, come comment, kudos, or yell at me on tumblr, i'm @traumapeaks! if you have any requests for the spooky szn ficlets i'm writing, feel free to comment here or drop me on tumblr, since i have anon enabled.


	11. a sweet release

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What did you want, when you were dead?

The more Ponyboy talks, the more a distinct buzzing sound seems to fill Dally's head. 

Rage, horror, disgust work their way through him as Pony explains to him everything that happened, from the moment Johnny died until now. Having the plan in his head, being unable to take it one night, deciding that he should kill himself, it was one thing. To go through it, to have felt those bullets rip through him, determined not to live one more second in a place like this where Johnny Cade had to die, where Ponyboy looked to be going down the same path, a place where no one could ever win…

It seemed like the right thing to do. It seemed like the _only_ thing to do, and damn the rest of it. Dallas had wanted to be dead then. 

Now he wasn't. He wasn't exactly dead and he wasn't exactly alive. He was here, listening to Ponyboy spill his guts out, head buzzing, unable to quantify what exactly he wanted out of all of this, what he could want out of all of this. Going back to wherever it had been before he ended up in Ponyboy's living room, he didn't want that. The more he thought about that, the more the buzzing kept up, the more pent up nervous, upset energy he had with nowhere to go. 

He focuses again on Ponyboy as he finishes a third cigarette, "Then you showed back up, scaring the hell out of me. I didn't know what to do-- and you didn't either."

It's an opening that Dally takes. Talking, focusing makes the buzzing in his head go down. "Shit, Pone," his voice sounds tired, even to his own ears with the way the situation is laid out like this. Dallas wasn't an idiot by a mile where it counted; it was just that what _counted_ now wasn't the same when he was living. He couldn't go shake someone down for money to make this go away, wasn't going to get hauled off to jail if he fucked up, and he couldn't very well be killed again. 

His hand goes up to rub at his face. Ponyboy waits, patiently for what he has to say next. It proves difficult. "I didn't… I mean, I thought that was…" 

Dallas tries to push out the words, tries to find a way to grasp onto what he wants to say. Frustration builds in him, the sensation almost like a headache. 

What did you want, when you were dead?

It felt as if the answer was simple: he wanted to _live_. To drink again, to fight, to be angry, to talk to everyone else. Even though he'd made the decision to pull out the gun, to bluff to the cops. 

That wasn't quite it. Not when Ponyboy was tied to him in this too now. Lord knew that Dallas had tried to contact the other boys, tried to get them to hear him. They never did, and as selfish, as mean as Dallas could be, out of anyone, Ponyboy had the best chance of leaving this place, making someone from himself. 

Dallas had always known that. Had always respected the fact that Darry and Soda worked so hard to keep a roof over their heads, and admired in his own way, that Ponyboy wasn't like any of them. Having his head in the clouds may not be conducive to staying out of trouble -- it was, however, something that made Ponyboy different, made him do all those things Dallas had never been interested in, couldn't achieve. 

Ponyboy could get out. Johnny had died, and Pony could go on. 

With himself here, he was complicating that. 

Before he can struggle out anything more, Ponyboy interjects with, "I get it." He looks tired, resigned and Dallas knows damn well that Ponyboy does not get it and lets his face say so. "We can't change that. We just have to figure out what to do now. I meant that I don't want to have you go again, but neither of us understand how this works or what we want. So we can start there: what do you want?" 

"Nothing you can give me," Dallas says, and if he could grind his teeth to feel it, he would. 

Ponyboy reaches for another smoke. "Yeah. Not _that_. I mean…" Dallas can see the wheels starting to turn in his head, thoughts clearly starting to swim in his head. "I guess, I want to say, is there something you didn't do, before? Something we can do now, that I can do? Ghosts have things like that, I guess, things they didn't get to do before they died." 

A snort leaves Dallas. It's a little funny. "Naw, not…" 

Well. A few things occur to him. Things Ponyboy might not be able to do, and a few that wouldn't be too much. He works his jaw. "I got an idea or two. But I got one for you, Pone: what are you going to do, with me here? You're the only one who can hear me, who can see me." Dallas tries his best to not be painfully blunt, as much as he can exercise it. "You're the one graduating soon, and while I sure as shit don't want to go, you can't look crazy for talking to thin air or telling anyone some hood you knew is communicating with you from the dead. Throwing away any of that, it's bullshit." 

Ponyboy gives Dallas a smile that, while worn, is genuine. He sighs,"I try what I'm doing now. I can keep my trap shut. I haven't been talking to you like," he glances at the door and back, "a crazy person. It's the… touching that's a problem." Pony looks uncomfortable as he mentions it. "First time, it hurt like hell. Second time--" 

"I still don't know what--," 

Ponyboy raises his hands up, "Yeah, I know! It's just that shit was scary. Waking up, not knowing what happened. You told me, you did…" he struggles for his own words. "Did you want to do that… again? Was it like…"

Being alive. Ponyboy doesn't have to say it. 

Dallas watches the tip of Ponyboy's cigarette flare in the room. The impulse to lie and push it away, deflect is there. In this moment though, Dallas decides that the blunt honesty he usually has is better. Even though it's frustrating to say it, biting out, "Fuck, hope you didn't expect me to say no." 

Ponyboy takes a drag. "Naw, I didn't." He breathes out smoke, and keeps his eyes on Dally. "If… we could figure out how to do it without me losing time… I figure it's the least I could do." Dally's face telegraphs his disbelief clearly. "Not all the time, Dal or anything but… we gotta work something out for us both."

"Ponyboy!" The door to the house slams open, making him jump. Sodapop's voice rings out. "Where are you?" 

Dallas swears, "We'll finish later."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a couple more and then this part wraps up!


	12. the body is willing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Making dinner with everyone over is something that tends to happen when it happened, with no rhyme or reason to it. All it took was someone with a little more money, some time, and the will to do it. 
> 
> For a bit, Ponyboy forgets Dally is there, watching.

Making dinner with everyone over is something that tends to happen when it happened, with no rhyme or reason to it. All it took was someone with a little more money, some time, and the will to do it. 

For a bit, Ponyboy forgets Dally is there, watching. As soon as the door had opened, and he'd been called down, things had gone immediately into motion. He moves around the kitchen, the living room helping to make food, arranging plates, keeping beers to the right person. Curly Shepard shows up this time, even, being more useful than usual with the cold beers he brings and some store bought pies. 

(Well. "Bought.") 

Eventually it all comes together. Mashed potatoes, a chicken, the pies, some corn, and string beans with bacon. It's not bad for a bunch of greasers and one hood on a Sunday night. Ponyboy feels good as they eat with each other, talking about school, about the DX, Darry's promotion, about nothing really at all. The beer that Darry allows him is cold, and he doesn't think much about Dally for a little bit. 

At least not until the usual lull that falls when someone mentions a past story with Johnny or Dallas. This time it's Curly, describing a time Dallas had shaken Buck down for cash. Soda is in stitches and Darry is chuckling. 

Ponyboy then glances up, searching for Dallas then. He grips his beer tighter, feeling buzzy as he looks for him. 

Dallas is there alright, translucent against the refrigerator door. He looks pensive almost, and Ponyboy makes up an excuse to stand up as Curly talks. 

He walks to the fridge, turns his back and offers his hand to Dally. 

It might not work. This could go really, really wrong. Ponyboy keeps his hand though, palm open to Dally, hoping he doesn't have any say it. 

Dally takes his hand as Curly starts to laugh, exaggerating his story bit by bit. 

Just like that, he takes over, sliding into Ponyboy's ill-fitting body, flexing Pony's hand as he does it, grinning with Pony's mouth. He takes a drink of the beer, pull after long long pull. 

It's shitty, greaser bought beer. 

It's the best thing he's ever tasted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a very short update! comments, kudos, come holler at me over on tumblr!


	13. and so is the soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soda loves these dinners. They never get planned so much as happen for them all, and it always makes him feel all the better for all the closeness it gives him. It's not like having his parents, Dally, and Johnny back. Comes damn near close to it, though.

Soda loves these dinners. They never get planned so much as happen for them all, and it always makes him feel all the better for all the closeness it gives him. It's not like having his parents, Dally, and Johnny back. Comes damn near close to it, though. 

Having one happen so soon after the anniversary is even better. He'd had some extra money saved up, and caught Curly and Tim needing to get rid of some stolen food. All he had to do was mention it'd be supper in a few hours to get Curly to show. Steve was even easier, and Two-Bit never said no. 

Ponyboy was already home, and to Soda's relief, he seemed better than he had in months. There had been talks with Darry about him, how sick he'd gotten around the anniversary. It had made him so nervous, almost sick himself to see Pony like that, so sick he'd been calling for Dallas himself. The house being on the fritz too with an odd cold spell hadn't helped either. 

Quietly, he'd been keeping an eye on him as much as he could. That didn't count for much; the days at the DX were wearing on him lately, and for the first time in some time, he wondered if he might move onto somewhere else, pick up a better job at the general store--even if it meant having to look the other way when Curly or Tim came around. 

Not that it was that big of a deal, really. There were days at the DX where he didn't care if they lifted something and others where he didn't mind opening the register himself. 

For now though, having his kid brother smiling, making food with them made Soda feel relief. Darry even felt good enough to ease up a bit, let Pony drink with them. Soda didn't partake much or often--these dinners though, they felt good enough to drink a bit. 

Ponyboy, like usual, didn't have too much to say unless he was pulled in. He still was in his own head, and that felt fine. The grin he wore as Curly talked about Dallas getting one over on Buck looked less sad than usual--enough for Soda's attention to drift to Steve almost tipping out of his chair. He tried to help him back up only for both of them to go down to raucous laughter from almost everyone at the table. 

Curly only groused a bit when they finally came back up, still caught up with his story, "You should have seen ol' Buck's face. He looked like he was about to shit himself, he was so pissed at Dallas." The smile he had couldn't be called nice exactly; just a Shepard smile, with a big more amusement than needed, more malice than necessary. "I dunno what that hood said--" 

"Told him if he tried to do that shit again," Ponyboy's voice breaks over Curly's, something Soda would have never predicted, "I'd let his horse finish the damn job. Least, that's what Dallas told me." The look on Ponyboy's face is clearly just as amused as anyone else's. Steve starts in on laughing again and so does Soda - - which only worsens when Darry and Two-Bit catch each other's eyes and start laughing into their own drinks. 

Ponyboy grins -- and oddly, through laughter, Soda thinks it reminds him of Dally in how sharp it is, the undertone of something much more cutting. 

The thought is fleeting-- a trick of the light. 

The rest of the night, Pony seems more animated than usual. More willing to engage with them before, sharing stories mostly about Dally or Johnny. It's a bit surprising; Soda didn't think they were that close. Maybe Pony just was really good at keeping his mouth shut. 

The night winds down. Curly leaves just in time to avoid cleanup, Two-Bit helps him and Steve clean. Ponyboy keeps drinking in long, thirsty pulls, slinking out to the porch. 

Normally he'd help. On a night like this though, Soda let's him go. 

It's a good night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're almost at the end of part one! 🥳 there are (at this moment) at least four more parts to this. planning a bit of a pause of a week or two before part two officially goes up. comments, kudos, come shout at me over at tumblr on @traumapeaks!


	14. my body and soul here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last time he took over was brief, a spur of the moment spat of violence that was needed, was a moment of protection and anger, a moment born of desperation and unsureness.

Sitting on the porch, filled up with beer and food, Dallas is buzzing. The last time he took over was brief, a spur of the moment spat of violence that was needed, was a moment of protection and anger, a moment born of desperation and unsureness. 

This time, though, Ponyboy had willingly let him take over. It made all the difference to Dallas, from the ease of it to the feeling of Pony's body. Before, it felt a bit like struggling to find how to move in an ill fitting suit. This time it felt more like an old, familiar jacket, that he just had to flex once or twice to get used to again. 

Nothing is really resolved now, he has his head enough to know that. This situation is strange in every sense, and there wasn't any way that taking over Pony's body was going to realistically solve any damn thing. Ponyboy knew that when he extended his hand to Dally, in the kitchen. Not every thought comes to Dallas from Ponyboy; some thoughts are transparent, some are opaque, most he can't focus on all that well.

That didn't require any of that. It was loud and clear what Ponyboy was offering at that moment: a connection to the boys from before. A moment that Dally could have all on his own that Ponyboy would give to him.

A moment he had taken. 

It feels good, again, to drink, to eat. To talk. To let others besides Ponyboy hear him, respond to him. It felt like he was truly, _alive_ for a little while. 

It made it all the harder to remember that he wasn't alive. All the worse when he had to admit to himself that as good as it felt to be alive, to be able to taste shitty beer from Curly, to eat the Curtises food again, he couldn't stay in Ponyboy's body. 

If it were anyone else, he wouldn't have cared. Would have done anything to fight to stay here; even now, the urge to stay here, to stay in a body, a real, living one was something Dallas had to keep a tight hand on, to fight it back. Ponyboy though…

He reached for the pack of smokes Ponyboy still kept on him. 

You couldn't call this a debt between them. You couldn't exactly say Ponyboy had saved him, pulled him out of his grave by his hand alone. Lord knew that Ponyboy could have tried harder to get Dallas right back into the ground, gone to a priest or something. 

Instead, he had done something that Dallas associated the most with Mrs. Curtis, something that they hadn't really done in life, ever: talk. 

Ponyboy had finally used that damn head of his to talk to Dallas, evenly. He had been pissed off at the time, had taken days to stew, leaving Ponyboy on his own. Had practically boiled with anger, had sat with it for days and days as it had spilled out of him. 

There was no real option for blowing off steam, however. No tires to slash, no fight to get into, nothing except drifting through the days with Ponyboy. Even that was hard to quantify for him; the more he thought by himself without a need to communicate, it was as if reality fell away, and while he could feel Ponyboy near him, while he knew where he was as if tethered directly to the core of his soul, it was almost like moving in static, shifting away. 

It left him, to be blunt, solely with himself. No one else. Just his boiling anger, just his thoughts. 

Uncomfortable. Annoying. Angering. 

And eventually, he had to work his way through his thoughts. Had to sort through what he felt about it all without interruption, something that ultimately reminded him of all the time he'd been locked up. Caught, really. 

And so caught, Dallas had been forced to think. Confront. Work his way through it. 

The big problem that presented itself: he didn't know everything that happened since he had died. There was no way to move forward, as disconcerting as it was, as much as it made that strange feeling of disembodiment static come over him. He _had_ to know, in order to move forward even if it was hard. 

The one good thing about being dead, it meant that no one had to know how sick it made him to think about the aftermath. To have to actually…

There wasn't a phrase he knew for it. 

Everything though, now, was on the table for the most part. Ponyboy told him everything that happened. It was sitting with him now, past, and present. The future…

He didn't know what the future was going to be like. He didn't know if there was truly a future in this that allowed him to stay without harming Ponyboy or without him having to go back to whatever it has been before he died. 

Dallas takes a drag from the cigarete, using Ponyboy's body, his mouth, his hands. It's still unfamiliar, still disconcerting--and yet exciting. Intriguing. 

They weren't finished talking, just yet, about the future. 

They'd get to it, in time. 

For now, he appreciates the ability to taste food, to smell a cigarette. He settles into Ponyboy's body, for the time being, knowing that he'd have to give him his body back in the morning. He shuts his eyes and accepts this new normal between them--that they were tied together in a way that neither of them completely understood, but were willing to stay with each other to figure out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🥳! the end of part one! this is the _longest_ part of _the descent_ and i'm very happy you made it. part two (that isn't a spooky szn ficlet or a possible future) will be back in november. i'm taking a mini hiatus to focus/post some other stuff (mostly in _cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run_ series), get a little bit farther ahead and then we'll be back. i love comments, kudos, shoutouts on tumblr (i'm @traumapeaks) and any questions about them at all. thanks for reading and hoping to see you next installment or elsewhere in my fics.


End file.
